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There are some of those games that come out that makes you want to play for fun, but then once you’re done you feel like you need to spread the word, Star Command is definitely one of them.

During the most recent Humble Mobile Bundle for Android, War Balloon Games debuted their Space Sim, Star Command. Being released for iOS in May, it peaked at #2 Top Selling iPhone app and was in the Top 40 for iPads. This simulation game puts you in total control of the crew of the ship of your choosing. You get to design your ship to your liking and have the amount of crew that you want. You lead the starship in a series of missions against multiple aliens with different fighting strategies. This game alone makes the Bundle worth buying. It also makes me really, really want a middle tablet (7-9″) to play games on.

Why a mid-size tablet? Because this game is so addicting in what you are doing! It would hurt my wrist holding my 10″ tablet for that long. You get engrossed into the game and the battles keep you focused. You may want to make sure that you have some free time before picking this one up.

Gameplay

If you’re type that likes the resource management and total control of everything, you just found your Android version of the Bible. From the start you get to pick the type of ship, and then you decide everything in it. All you start out with is a bridge. You want to make sure your crew can f*ck people up when they are on your ship? Add more assault rooms. Want to just keep fighting and be able to heal and bring people back from the dead? Add more medical. Want to repair faster? Add more tech rooms. Your final design will be similar, but just enough that you will want to play again just to see how it will change.

Each time place you go into battle, you have to make sure you have everyone in the right spots. It’s a real good balance of choosing what to do. When people invade your ship, what assault group do you want to pull? If you pull from your weapons, they take longer to charge (or don’t charge at all if you pull everyone). If your pull from the bridge, your shields won’t recharge. These consequences is what drew me in the game. I had to figure out who was going to where, depending on what the ship was doing.

Another part that I like about the game, that many others may hate, is that there is no aut healing. After a battle you will need to get the hurt people to one of your medical staff. Is your ship on fire? Get your tech team out to make repairs. Shields not regenerating? You probably forgot to send people back to their stations after the battle. Once you get the rhythm down, it will be wash,rinse, repeat.

Graphics

Being a fan of the pixelated form, this game looks good. The ships look nice, the randomness of the characters are decent. There are some races that have only two looks, but others have plenty. The graphics are nice and smooth while zooming, because you will be doing that a lot. There were a few glitches where I had some headless creatures but it didn’t affect gameplay at all.

Pros

This is a phenomenal game. The management system is real nice. The story is good. And it all looks nice while doing it.

Cons

Some of the battles did get repetitive, but not to the point that I wanted tot quit. The game did freeze on occasions, but that should be expected on the first launch of a game. Also I can’t tell if it was because I was so addicted to it and played until the wee hours or if it is true, but the games did seem short. But the cool part is (*spoilerish*) after you complete it, it allows you to switch ships and start all over again with the crew you’ve already amassed.

9.0

Amazing

Summary

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